As straightforward as spinoffs can get, really. Kids love talking cars, and kids love toy airplanes, so kids will love talking airplanes too, right? And they do, or at least mine do, even if none of this cast has half the sparkle or charisma of a Lightning McQueen or a Tow Mater. Which should speak volumes, since both are pretty much the bottom of the barrel in Pixar's repertoire.

As competition-focused racing movies go, it's middle of the pack - energetic and often lovely, but flat as a board and thoroughly predictable. Younger audiences will thrill to the frequent chase scenes, with a good mix of terrain thrown in as appreciable spice, but their chaperones won't find much material hiding beneath the surface. Cars had a timely message about the loss of the great American highway lurking under there, and at least Cars 2 had some buck to its script, but there's really nothing more to this one than a simple played-out underdog sporting saga. And hey, that's perfectly okay. There's plenty of room on the screen for bright, shiny, cookie-cutter kids' fare, and it certainly doesn't offend. It's just no comparison to the Pixar-branded forerunners that paved these lanes.

Good enough for a quiet evening, no more, no less, and it gave my three-year-old boys a good dose of imagination fuel.